Gurdjieff Reconsidered: The Life, the Teachings, the Legacy

by Roger Lipsey, Cynthia Bourgeault (Foreword by)

Overview

From a master biographer and longtime Gurdjieff practitioner, a brilliant new exploration of the quintessential Western esoteric teacher of the twentieth-century.

The Greek-Armenian teacher G.I. Gurdjieff was one of the most original and provocative spiritual teachers in the twentieth-century West. Whereas much work on Gurdjieff has been either fawning or blindly critical, acclaimed scholar and writer Roger Lipsey balances sympathic interest in Gurdjieff and his "Fourth Way" teachings with a historian's sense of context and a biographer's feel for personality and relationships. Using a wide-range of published and unpublished sources, Lipsey explores Gurdjieff's formative travels in Central Asia, his famed teaching institution in France, the development of the Gurdjieff Movements and music, and, above all, Gurdjieff's fascinating continuous evolution as a teacher.

Published on the 70th anniversary of Gurdjieff's death, Gurdjieff Reconsidered delves deeply into Gurdjieff's writings and those of his most important students, including P. D. Ouspensky and Jeanne de Salzmann. Lipsey's comprehensive approach and unerring sense of the subject make this a must-read for anyone with a serious intention to explore Gurdjieff's life, teachings, and reputation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781611804515
Publisher:	Shambhala
Publication date:	02/05/2019
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	1,098,016
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

ROGER LIPSEY is a biographer, art historian, translator, and, for many decades, a participant in the Gurdjieff teaching. He is the author of Coomaraswamy: His Life and Work; An Art of Our Own: The Spiritual in Twentieth-Century Art; Angelic Mistakes: The Art of Thomas Merton; Make Peace Before the Sun Goes Down: The Long Encounter of Thomas Merton and His Abbott, James Fox; and Hammarskjöld: A Life, which has been hailed as the definitive biography of Dag Hammarskjöld. Since the publication of the Hammarskjöld biography, Roger speaks in many parts of the world under the auspices of the United Nations educational service.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix

Foreword Cynthia Bourgeault xi

Acknowledgments xix

1 Disparu! Éteint! 1

Prologue to Chapters 2-6: The Decades of a Teacher 33

2 Tibetan Tea Very Wise Creation 37

3 The First Exposition: Russia 1912-1917 47

4 Sonnez Fort: The Prieuré 1922-1932 61

5 Lux in Tenebris: The 1930s 151

6 Là-bas, rue des Colonels Renard 177

7 The Great Prayer: 1950-1956 233

8 Derision 255

9 Beelzebub's Tales 291

10 Coda 307

Afterword 311

Notes 315

Bibliography 335

Credits 343

Index 345

About the Author 359

Editorial Reviews

12/10/2018

Lipsey (Hammarskjöld: A Life), an art historian and translator, fails to coherently articulate to the lay reader the philosophy of mystic and spiritual teacher Gurdjieff (1877–1949) in this poorly conceived book. Lipsey concedes that his oblique approach is deliberate, noting that “as a reader, you won’t have missed the fact that I have not much concerned myself with ‘expounding’ the teaching.” Though he explains that this choice is premised on his conviction that “the teaching is evident in every reported exchange, every incident in these pages,” not many will be able (or willing) to make those inferences into Gurdjieff’s thinking. Lipsey approaches Gurdjieff’s ideas and claims that a higher state of consciousness was attainable by way of close readings of his writings and journals, going so far as to analyze a journal entry on making salad. When Lipsey does directly address his subject’s philosophy, his glib formulations create more confusion, as when he notes the aphorism “every stick has two ends” explains “nearly everything.” Lipsey is even admittedly ambivalent about whether Gurjieff’s teachings should “remain secret” to a general audience. This ambivalence results in an odd presentation that leaves a tantalizing spiritualist’s teachings frustratingly obscure. Readers curious about why Gurdjieff continues to attract such a passionate following would be better served by studying Gurdjieff’s own works. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

"This work is exceptionally well written, limpid in style, terse in expression, and clear in sense. It is more than an excellent introduction to Gurdjieff for readers who know little of him or his work; it is, in effect, Gurdjieff considered as well as re-considered."—Paul Beekman Taylor, author of G.I. Gurdjieff: A New Life and Gurdjieff in the Public Eye

“More than Gurdjieff reconsidered, this book is Gurdjieff rediscovered. Behind us are the rumors, shadows, circular repetitions of vague and undocumented criticism. We discover a man of infinite humanity. Gurdjieff was in advance of his time. His extremely innovative thinking, his all-embracing spiritual teaching, his music and Movements are pure gold and pure light for our troubled times.”—Basarab Nicolescu, author of From Modernity to Cosmodernity

“Lipsey’s careful and insightful account of the various periods of Gurdjieff’s teaching, beautifully framed by avoiding ‘explanations’ of his ideas, enables him to bring home to the reader the living, passionate, and grounded man himself. Lipsey’s humanity and wide perspective lead him to situate Gurdjieff in the company of many humane revolutionaries, ancient and modern. An exemplary contribution to the conversation.”—A. G. E. Blake, author of The Intelligent Enneagram

“Lipsey’s Gurdjieff Reconsidered is a welcome addition to the field of Gurdjieff Studies and the field of Western esotericism, more generally. The book is an excellent introduction to Gurdjieff’s ideas, thanks to the author’s use of an abundance of primary sources.”—Reading Religion

From the Publisher